Hesitations and Smiles
by NekoXBemura
Summary: John's birthday years ago, on the night Sherlock gave him the video.


I hope this turned out alright, I just wanted to contribute to my fandom on this heart-wrenching, feel-clenching Christmas! (Sorry, I think I got a little carried away with Sherlock's deductions!)

* * *

"And then the crazy bastard jumps from the window! I mean, we may have had him cornered, but you'd think jail would have been a bit more pleasant!"

John chuckled lightly, swirling the contents of his glass. Gazing over at the empty seat beside him, he downed its contents before resting it on the table. Lestrade noticed nothing, too busy recounting a past case to their other companions. Though John certainly enjoyed the tale, he found it paled in comparison to the cases he and his flat-mate had solved.

"Having a good time?"

Sarah-or was it Diane?-leaned in close to him from his other side, smile on her face. He ignored the voice that rang throughout his head ("She's not for you, John; she smiles too much. The only people who smile that much are those too afraid to lose the things that make them happy. She'll be putting your name on a stuffed rabbit and giving it to you for your birthday if you don't scare her off first.")

Damn, was that voice annoying.

"Uh, yeah. Lots of fun." She nodded and turned back to Lestrade.

Claiming to need another drink, John stood, pushing his chair to the table. He successfully bypassed Molly and Mrs Hudson on one side, and skirted around his sister Harry on the other. Lacking the will to rent out a room for the night, his party was being held in the flat of a friend; and, as per usual birthday custom, plenty of alcohol had been brought by the party-goers. It was in the kitchen he was able to pour himself another drink while watching his friends laugh and be merry. You couldn't get him wrong, John was having a grand time; it was just-he felt there was something missing.

Something with a voice more annoying than birds at four-in-the-morning, but John oddly found it comforting, somewhat like the wail of a kitten that would swat at your hand, and then cuddle in your bed.

Not that Sherlock was a kitten. Kittens were cute, and social; Sherlock was more the grumpy old cat that sat in his chair and refused to converse with anyone outside its home. John remembered scoffing when he had watched the birthday video the man had made for him earlier that evening.

"Busy" his arse. John knew damn well that the man was holed up somewhere, content to avoid the people coming for the man's birthday no matter how John thought of the matter.

Shaking his head, he realised Molly had asked him a question and was patiently waiting for a response.

"I'm sorry, what?" She smiled, a little put off at his inattention.

"I would have thought that Sherlock would be here tonight," she commented.

"Why is that?" he asked.

"Oh. Um, only because I never see you without him. I mean, I never see him without you either-I guess what I mean is that you two are always together. 'Two peas in the pod' or so they say-"

"I, I got the idea Molly, thank you." She blushed in embarrassment. "He said he was too busy tonight. A 'thing' he had to take care of."

"I think he's just skipping out on you, John, dear," said Sarah. "The way he is, he has no regards for other human beings. Too caught up in himself, he is. Really, John, I don't understand why you put up with him."

_Just look at her lipstick, John. Of course she'd think that, she's got nothing else to go on._

"Ah, now, I'd think Sherlock would be here if he could," Lestrade defended.

"No, the girl is right," Harry interjected. John gave his sister an annoyed look. She returned the look pointedly. "Think about it, John. Your flat-mate is always missing when we get together. Either he's got something to hide from the rest of us or he doesn't care about you."

_Notice the light smudges of mascara around her eyes. It's light, meaning she tried to fix it up, but she didn't have access to her make-up kit; she was out, and only carried the necessary touch-up powder. She was crying and needs to make herself feel better by focusing on made-up drama, but she doesn't want to make it obvious._

"Sherlock would never abandon John like that," Mrs Hudson said. "Those boys are too close."

"Oh, that's right," Anderson commented sarcastically. "Because the man's always so reliable."

….

John waited for the voice's response, but none came.

_Oh. I didn't know you needed me to know what was wrong with Anderson._

John laughed. His companions glanced at him in surprise before joining in the laughter, at first in confusion, but soon building to reverberate around the flat. John held a hand to his forehead to quiet the voice, and soon walked over to his friends once more. He found himself looking at Sarah's lipstick when she grabbed ahold of his arm, but said nothing of it.

"So, Lestrade, I heard you had a case near Yorkshire recently."

"Oh, yes, you see…."

* * *

"You always seem to be the talk of the party, no matter where you are."

Sherlock glanced up at John as he entered, more of as an acknowledgement than anything, before returning his gaze back to the paper in front of him. Sherlock liked the paper, he found, more-so than he did using the computer. The paper was more set in stone, for one, and what an internet browser couldn't tell you could be easily found on a paper.

Smudges by the headlines by a woman gossiper or an older man, red ink in the jobs section, coffee stains on the rent pages. These were the fresh smells of print he enjoyed in the mornings, especially when he went out to purchase one at a coffee shop or diner; many people to analyse.

Sherlock always noticed the crinkle of the newspaper when he reached the funnies section, and the ink smudges in the recreation pages; both could be found when his flat-mate would hand him the paper each morning.

"Well, John, I always told you your girlfriend wore too much lipstick to be short of any gossip. Not to mention your sister's sloppy life is cause for her to make drama out of yours."

John quirked a smile out of Sherlock's eye.

"Please sit down, John, you know how I hate it when people chastise me when I'm sitting down."

"Chastise you?" John asked, already leading towards exasperation. Nonetheless he removed his coat, draping it over the back of his chair before plopping himself down in it. He faced Sherlock. "What made you think I was going to chastise you?"

"Oh, your pacing of course. I suppose you thought that I wasn't able to go to your party because I didn't want to. Of course you'd want to chastise me, you'd think it was 'improper' to send you the message over a video."

John rolled his eyes when Sherlock didn't even look up at him. He found he was able to make a lot of gestures the man would never see. "I had no intentions of chastising you, Sherlock. And I actually thought the video was a rather nice gesture. It certainly wasn't something you'd do normally."

"Well, I had no wiles to hear you whine about how I never give you anything for your birthday."

Of course. Couldn't the man just take something and let it well enough alone?

"Either way, John, would you mind explaining what you were doing pacing? There's obviously something you want to tell me. You appear to be slightly more frustrated than usual, you've rolled your eyes enough."

"More than usual? What's that supposed to mean?"

"No point trying to avert the conversation, John, such blatant attempts don't work on me. Spit it out before you become too much of a coward to tell me."

John flushed, aggravated in a mixture of the man's verbal assaults and the alcohol from earlier in the evening. "Well, if you're so clever, why don't you tell me?"

Finally, Sherlock glanced up at him, looking him in the eyes this time. The sudden challenge brought him to full attention, and he never passed up an opportunity to "show off". So he brought his raking eyes over John's appearance, observing without a second thought to his deductions.

"You hands are clenched over the armrest, showing you are anxious of something. In addition to that, there are finger marks on your hands, from where you've been wringing them out in anticipation. My, whatever it is you are refusing to share, it must have you in a flurry." Sherlock ignored the look John gave him, but did notice that he placed his hands in his lap after his commentary.

"There are marks on your arms, made from a woman's hands, based on the light scratch marks in the fabric. The scratch marks also indicate that she's not used to wearing long nails, artificial, I suspect, and she had intentions of impressing you. Why you? because it was your birthday, simply. Anyone who knows you also knows that you are typically with one girl or another, regardless of how short of a period you two are together for. In other words, this is your girlfriend, and she had full intentions of letting you have your way with her. But you didn't take it, why not? There's something on your mind, John. Something you can't get out of your head even though she's whispering in your ear, leaving small lipstick prints behind. She must not be used to whispering, most people don't do that. My, you did get an inexperienced one.

"So why didn't you take her present? No, don't say anything I'm on a role. Your cheeks are red, more red than they would be even with alcohol, and there are two places, one on each cheek. One is from where she slapped you-my, my, John, you did upset her-took her trust and then broke up with her-the other from where she kissed you and you tried to rub it off. Why try to rub it off? You wouldn't have done it in front of the others; no, you're too kind to break up with her in front of a crowd, so you do it outside, after the party. But the others know you were with her, even if they did know you broke it off. If you wanted to hide it from them, you would have done it with your hand, you had nothing to hide. But this mark was clearly attempted to be removed with water. Why?"

John could tell that, by the end of Sherlock's deductions, his face had gained at least one more shade of red. This was a bad idea, testing Sherlock's mind, and especially when John was drunk and full of thoughts meant to be left unspoken. He felt his hands clench once more, and knew that was the last straw.

Sherlock knew.

But there was still a chance. Sherlock hadn't spoken yet, which could mean one of two things. Either he was still mulling over the question of why, or he knew why, and was too perturbed by the deduction that he was left unable to speak. John let out a sigh of relief minutes later when Sherlock got up, still having not said anything. He noticed the curly-haired devil had his robe on already, and turned slightly when the man came to pass him. He paused when he did, curious at to the sudden stop.

Sherlock was unsure, as he tended to be around John. The birthday message, he knew, was very uncharacteristic, which meant that John must have contracted ideas and notions from it. At the time, Sherlock had had no idea what message he had wanted to convey, past the 'Happy Birthday' scene. As it went, however, he had let the message come forth on its own, and in reviewal of the evidence had found that he let on to several things which John could decode to mean exactly what needed to be said.

His posture, his hesitation (or perhaps lack there-of in the edited version). His smile was felt with his heart, not something Sherlock was used to doing; and even though he wasn't sure what his heart was saying, he knew John knew. John always tended to know things about him that even he didn't.

So he spoke quietly, so he could be unsure as to whether John would hear his idea or not.

"If I ever leave, John-"

"Leave? Where the hell are you going-"

"-if I ever leave, John." Sherlock felt it necessary to be forceful in his words. "Just know that that video will say exactly what I want you to know. Not the words."

John looked at him in bewilderment, though had no idea why that surprised him.

"You're not going anywhere, Sherlock. So sit down and let's have some tea."

Sherlock just smiled at the ground as John got up for the kitchen, not making an effort to sit down in the slightest. John always knew what he needed, even if just a cup of tea.

* * *

By the time of the Fall, several months later, John had forgotten what Sherlock had said to him. By the time Lestrade had handed him the "uncut" version of the video, he could barely remember the night at all.

He only noticed two things in the video, not including the clenching of his heart as he heard his best friend speak to him from his television set.

His hesitation, and his smile.


End file.
